Going Home

So this is it, the last day. We had coffee and tiny bran muffins at the Super-8, gassed up and headed for the Hudson River. I had to add some oil this morning so the Massey must have used some during the hot days this last week. Dave's GPS was cranky and could find places on the map this morning but could not tell us how to get there. So we checked the map and started off anyway. Later this morning it started behaving again so we got a couple interesting back roads to ride on. But for the most part it was off through the Catskills, through Kingston and over the Hudson, then straight north on 9 to 22. We stopped for lunch at a local diner that also sold grass fed beef (you could see the "not yet dead" beef cattle feeding on the grass out the window). We were now pretty much backtracking the roads we had started on a week and a half ago. We took 9 into Vermont, did a loop around the Bennington Monument (Dave says it was not actually fought in Bennington but New York somewhere), and stopped at Hemming Motor News. I had never been here before and this is a neat place. It is a working gas station and they clean the windshield and check the oil, just like way back when in the good old days. They also have a great souvenir shop for motor-heads. If you ever need one of those real metal signs that say Ford or Chevy or "The Busted Knuckle Garage, Repair and Despair under One Roof", this is the place. Dave took me out back and they had a bunch of restored motorcycles and cars (and some outboard motors) from throughout the 1900s. Dave's old Whizzer he had when he was a teen (one just like it) was hanging from the ceiling and a restored Triumph Bonneville 750 (Dave and I both had older Triumphs than this one) was on the floor. Maybe we should have hung onto all that stuff!!!

So it was time to say goodbye. I was turning left in Wilmington to go north on Rt 100 and Dave was heading east down the mountain to Brattleboro. He has an infestation of aliens in his basement and had to get home to build a spaceship. I called him tonight and he said he and his 4 year old grandson had routed out any aliens using headlamps, I suppose so they could sneak up on them.

I headed north on 100 and ended up daydreaming past my turn and ended up in Manchester, so I took yucky Rt 7 to below Middlebury and then Rt 116 home.

My odometer showed I had been 3400 miles since I left home so we did a bit more than last year miles wise.

So Dave's new GPS really changed how we traveled compared to the previous year in that it took us on lots of hidden roads we would have otherwise missed (like the one with grass in the middle). The radios worked great as well and we didn't get sick of talking to each other (although come to think of it, there were a few hours when I couldn't talk to Dave, hmmm).

Once again, everyone we met in these hidden valleys and towns were kind and helpful and interested in these 2 "Yankees" from up north. And once again, it felt good to be back home. So the next trip will be.....